


Unfinished

by kimilers



Category: Granblue Fantasy (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, I simply wanted to write this for myself, So I shall and proceed to never read it again, The others are around but lets stay focused
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-06-13
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:08:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24702823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kimilers/pseuds/kimilers
Summary: A few days left to the concert and Aoidos is having more stress than ever before
Kudos: 16





	Unfinished

“So…” Justin began as the three of them sat at a table in a dim living space, “Perform with us.”

“I already said I…” Aoidos began.

“I never said anything about cutting off from Doss, did I? Why not play for both?” Justin grinned.

Both? Play for… both? Weren’t they in a rival match? How did that make any sense? “But… that would feel… set up.”

“It is set up.” Valentin laughed, “Set up by us.”

This was true, but Aoidos wasn’t sure if the fans needed to know that. Still, those words caused a strange sort of anger to swell up in him that he just couldn’t explain…

No… he could explain it, he just didn’t want to.

“You are dead set on being a pain in my ass until the very fucking end aren’t you?” Aoidos grumbled.

“Ah…?” Justin smiled a bit, “I know violence is your natural response but we should keep things civil...for now. No point in wasting it when we have a big show coming up.”

Aoidos slammed his fist on the table and took a few deep breaths. Yes, he was angry. He was absolutely enraged that The Doss had been dragged into this entire situation against their will. By THESE two of all people. But Aoidos also knew killing them wasn’t a very good answer either, despite what his instincts were dragging out for him.

Playing for both bands sounded so wrong and yet… was there really no simple path for Aoidos to make both fans happy? No, perhaps it wasn’t merely only the fans that Aoidos was worried about. 

Aoidos could remember the kind of person Justin was now. Aoidos knew exactly what Justin would want him to do. If he were to be so bold as to make an assumption based off memory alone, he’d let Doss play, then they would play… and the corpses on the stage would have to be…

That cold ache that left him unable to speak for days returned again. He couldn’t think of anything to say at this point, he could merely only pass the guys across the table the coldest look he could muster.

“Ooh…” Valentin said, “I love that look in your eyes, Benjamin. Can you do something more with it?”

“That’s enough.” Justin said, “We’ll take that as a yes.” he said, making the final answer himself while Aoidos was unable to respond. “We don’t really have anything new to perform so we’d mostly only need to practice older tunes.”

Aoidos didn’t care. He slammed himself up from the table in an attempt to leave.

“And where do you think you’re going?” Justin asked.

Aoidos turned his head slowly and replied quietly, “Leaving.”

Justin laughed, “You’re miles away from the town, that’s a bit of a walk at this hour…. But this said… more importantly, do you really think you’ll be able to control yourself?”

Aoidos gasped a bit.

“You got violent at mere words. Do you think The Doss is going to be able to handle you if you really let loose?”

“Yeah…” Valentin added, “I can take all your hits here.” He said, “Don’t leave and give them to someone else.”

“Gross.” Justin said, “Although, I wouldn’t mind making this competition a bit easier.”

This was a point where Aoidos felt like he had no choice on the matter. Justin raised a very solid point. If he were to go back, he’d be putting them all in danger and yet…

“My new song is not yet finished…” He grumbled.

“We can have it delivered.” Justin said. “Like said, we’re not doing anything new, so we have plenty of materials for stuff too.”

Would this work? Could Aoidos really make a whole new song happen with all of this going on? It was possibly his only choice on the matter that kept everyone safe.

“Follow me.” Justin said, “I know just what room to give you.”

Aoidos was rather surprised at the room he was led to. He was expecting the worst, but the room was fairly plain and tame.

“Don’t worry.” Justin said, “I’m well aware you’ve been living a more normal life so I kept it in mind when we left this room untouched.”

“This place looks like shit.” Valentin added. “The whole mood is wrong.”

“Shut your fucking mouth.” Aoidos slipped out as he rubbed his forehead. “Just… don’t bother me.” he removed his hand and looked them both in the eyes, “And if I catch either of you trying to look at my work for The Doss then I will gouge your damn eyes out with my bare hands.”

“Ahhhh…” Valentine said, “I love it. That just makes me wanna look even more.”

Justin took out a small knife and stabbed Valentin, “We’re keeping this fair.”

“Ahhh!!” Valentin moaned out, “Okay but only if you stab me again like that.”

“You gross me out.” Justin said as he stabbed him again.

\---

Being in the room alone helped a little with Aoidos controlling his mood, but focusing on work was something different. He didn’t want to play his song out loud too much, lest Justin and Valentin catch on to the sound, but that was hardly the problem.

It was like a television was blasting on in his head, but there was static noise everywhere. The channel would keep changing, and every time it shifted, Aoidos could feel his own emotions sway around with the storm.

He couldn’t get control of them. He couldn’t get control of himself. 

The anxiety of not knowing how The Doss was doing, the mess of himself and Justin and Valentin’s occasional voice pushed Aoidos to a full breaking point. He… he couldn’t do this. He had to, but he was in pain.

From time to time, he would try to reset himself with some rest, but he felt that was when the memories showed up best. 

It was horrifying. He had these memories. He acknowledged it was him standing there, but it wasn’t him. He could never understand thinking like this. He could never understand feeling like this. He could never understand doing any of this.

And yet it was undoubtedly him.

The image of horrified faces begging for their life in their last moment to those crazed concerts, to the image of his own parent’s harsh words against him. The more they played, the more it hurt.

The bed frame that he laid on was made of some cheap metal that Aoidos always found himself clinging on to when he tried to regain himself from those dreams. The cheap metal had long since bent and crushed under the pressure from his hands, but at least it worked.

“Benjamin....” he said out lightly, as if he were talking to someone else. 

Who was he supposed to be? Who was he actually? 

He remembered years ago… he woke up in a hospital bed. They said they had found him on the foot of the river on the brink of death, which made perfect sense now. Aoidos had never thought much on what happened himself, but he did note he had quite the scar on his back from the entire ordeal.

Luckily getting a guitar was much more natural this time. His original clothes were soiled in blood and shredded up, but a friendly seamstress had patched it up and cleaned the entire design up. By the looks of the clothes, it was easy for them to realize he was some sort of bard.

Funny… Aoidos had the memories. He always had, yet he never stopped to think about the circumstances that lead up to it. Having everything now, it all made too much sense, but… why had he never thought of this before?

Was he trying to subconsciously protect himself?

Once he found the guitar that produced that beautiful sound he loved, he simply thought nothing more and continued to move forward with himself, never looking back on what had happened.

And that was a mistake.

“What a sweet memory…” A voice rang out.

Aoidos felt chilled from it. It was undeniably his own voice, but there was something far more sinister about it. 

“I suppose it’d be easy to just want to make music and not think about things if you were surrounded by loving people like that.” Benjamin said.

It made Aoidos’s head hurt thinking on this. Benjamin seemed as though he was standing right there, but Aoidos knew he wasn’t. It was literally impossible. But Aoidos could see his image, he could hear his voice, he was practically there…

“Is that why you… we… I…” Aoidos started to talk back. It sounded silly, he was basically talking to himself, but maybe this voice in his head could finally give him some clarity.

Benjamin shrugged, “Hell if I could say. Hell if I care, really.”

“Why…” Aoidos said, “Why wouldn’t you…”

“Why would you? Those people are all long gone and removed from your life.” Benjamin said, “I wouldn’t mind making those two out there part of that circle, but I’ll spare your eyes for now.”

Aoidos flinched, “No!” Aoidos had always had a flare in speaking that made him difficult to understand to others, but he felt like he could be perfectly clear and understood here. “I don’t want ANY of them to be executed. Not by us…” his voice lowered as he thought about The Doss, “Not by me.”

Benjamin stayed quiet for a good while. Nothing new for him, but Aoidos found the silence unsettling.

“Shouldn’t you be working on a song or something?” Benjamin sighed, “Instead of wasting your time bitching?”

Aoidos looked up at the score paper on the tiny table in the room. It was still blank. “I…” He knew Benjamin’s voice was right. He was trying to kick him back to work, but no matter how much he looked, no matter how much he tried, he couldn’t find it. He couldn’t find the melody that stirred the emotions he was looking for.

“I can’t.” He quietly admitted, “I’ve failed. I can’t do it.” Aoidos knew he would have NEVER admitted this to anyone before, but trying to hide the truth seemed so futile in this case. 

“Are you really so fragile that a little stress cripples your creative ability?” Benjamin scoffed. “How can you call yourself ‘the greatest’ and not even work under pressure?”

It wasn’t fair. Benjamin could just look at Aoidos’s own memories and words and throw them back at him so easily. Aoidos couldn’t stand looking at Benjamin’s memories. The more he knew, the more he felt himself breaking.

Benjamin remained quiet again and watched Aoidos freeze. He was no stranger to this behavior, but it was perhaps a little strange for him to acknowledge he was doing it when a clear out was available.

The concert was in a matter of days and Aoidos hadn’t even started a score for his new song.

Aoidos slammed his body on the bed and grabbed the pillow, knowing what he had to do but he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. He couldn’t. 

Somewhere in the back of his mind, that melody existed, Aoidos just couldn’t reach it.

\---

He woke up later that night, it felt like a short rest but the ever ticking clock on the wall showed a couple of hours. His head felt groggy and foggy, like he was in a haze and had no idea where to go. 

Maybe he could beat the ever shifting rush of memories by focusing on his music. Even an hour or two of work could help, although he had no idea how he was going to make this happen. If he didn’t send a score soon, The Doss wouldn’t be able to practice it in time.

He sat at the table and noticed something…

The score paper had something written and scribbled on it. No, not just scribbled around, it was an entire score itself. 

Kind of sloppy, it looked like it was quickly done. But it was actually finished.

“Who?” Aoidos looked over it carefully. He looked over it carefully. If Justin had slipped this in here while he was slipping as a sabotage attempt, he’d slit his damn neck.

But… something strange stood out to Aoidos.

“These are my patterns.” He said. He put the paper down and grabbed his own instrument and tapped the strings, trying to keep the tune as quiet as possible.

As he played it, he recognized his patterns but he felt something… he knew this song. He knew this melody. As he played it, he felt another memory in the back of his mind surge up, but it felt entirely different from before.

Before, the memories felt like a giant waterfall pouring in a small container, overwhelming and forcing its presence before Aoidos, leaving him with a throbbing headache afterwards… But this time, he felt like that waterfall landed into a giant lake. A lake that he was left floating in, completely unharmed.

Things were still fuzzy, but Aoidos could see it clearly. He saw his own hands… No, Benjamin’s own hands playing the exact melody he was tapping. He noticed Benjamin would stop, think for a bit and try again.

“This melody is…” Aoidos thought, trying to put everything into place. Benjamin’s music sounded far harsher than this usually, Aoidos knew that at this point. This sounded far more tame, almost pleasant and easy on the ears.

“...Was this the song Benjamin wanted to perform before…” 

Aoidos found himself back in the room suddenly. He had stopped trying to sound the melody out for himself, it now rang clearly in his ears. He had heard it all before, multiple times even. His hands were shaking and he almost found himself on the verge of tears.

He recalled Benjamin mentioned being able to deliver a score to Justin and Valentin shortly before he was stabbed…

Benjamin had gotten this far with this melody… and Aoidos recognized it entirely. This was it. This was the exact melody he had been chasing for all along. The song that was never finished. The song that was never sang.

But was it fair for him to use this? Technically, this was Benjamin’s. Could Aoidos really take credit for it?

“I don’t care.” Benjamin’s voice rang in Aoidos’s head, “The other two would never play something like that.”

That voice… had a point. Aoidos knew that point was true, yet it still hurt to hear. This melody was so beautiful, it had such emotion to it… Yet it got Benjamin killed?

If Aoidos never played this song… it would waste away unplayed. That was the only two options for this song at this point.

He sat down and began to copy it. “Then… I’ll make it work for both of us.” he said, “This song starts with Benjamin and ends… with me.”

He needed to make a few copies for The Doss crew, but he also needed a copy for himself to work on. Yes, he could work on it a bit before making the copies for them, but he would need to do so quietly before Justin and Valentin could figure out what song he’d be playing. Aoidos needed to act quickly.

As he worked on the song and dedicated his time to it, he failed to notice that it helped all those harsh memories simply vanish. Yes, they were still in his mind, but they stopped forcing themselves on to his head, although sometimes he felt emotionally drained and empty from all of this. 

But he felt like the answer to everything… his problems, his questions, his pains, his woes, his dilemma… could all be found within this unfinished melody.


End file.
